Headlights are evident and well-pronounced features of any vehicle, whether a sedan, bus, truck, etc. They are your safety guard when cruising at night.
If you drive at night without headlights, you will probably never see that pretty huge bump sitting silently on the road.
How would you stay in the lane properly if you do not see the road ahead? Different headlights are installed in all cars, no matter how old. Car manufacturers are legally bound to establish this critical safety feature.
The law also mandates that drivers ensure that their headlights work correctly before taking their cars out for a night drive.
This ensures the safety of the driver and other road users, such as pedestrians and even animals.
Are you scared of running off the road into the trees by the side while driving at night? Headlights are your best bet at preventing such.
Despite the illumination from the installed street lights, there is no excuse to keep your headlights on while driving at night.
Back in the early days of car manufacturing, old cars were equipped with similar headlights, which were considered simply safety features.
However, headlights have evolved to be safety features and iconic symbols defining car brands, giving birth to different headlights.
New technology has allowed more recent car models to be equipped with some pretty high-tech and cool headlights.
In some ways, they even define vehicles‘ social and luxury status today. Today, some of the most expensive cars come equipped with highly technologically advanced headlights.
Despite the varying options available for headlights, their primary function is to adequately illuminate the road ahead for the driver.
However, manufacturers differ in the technology used to achieve this illumination, operation mechanism, and overall design.
Drivers must be familiar with the type of headlight on their cars, as they are vital parts of any vehicle, especially if the need for replacement arises.
Even if you are not a driver, this article will tell you all about the different types of headlights available for consumer use today. So, sit tight and get your screen scrolling.
Headlights consist of various components, such as the type of bulb, the number of bulbs present, and the housing.
We will examine the different types of headlights based on these components, such as the bulbs incorporated and the housing used.
Types of Headlights Based on the Bulb Type
1. Halogen Bulb Headlights
If you pass by ten cars on the road today, the chances are that seven of them are probably using halogen headlights.
If the vehicles are older models, such as 2006, the chances increase to 9 out of 10.
These were and probably are the most common headlight type among the different headlights.
These halogen bulbs are different from the regular filament bulbs found in homes. They are much heavier-duty brothers than standard filament bulbs and have more illuminating power.
These bulbs were the go-to bulbs for car headlights for many years despite their relatively high inefficiency, running hot, and yellowish illumination.
Halogen bulbs use either one filament or a pair of filaments to provide bright and dim headlamp functions.
Unlike regular filament bulbs, the halogen bulb uses a pressurized halogen gas instead of a vacuum.
Halogen gas is a chemically reactive gas such as bromine or iodine. However, inert gas is also added.
The combination of the reactive and inert gas allows the bulbs to have a brighter and longer burn without causing blackening of the bulb’s inside and preventing the thinning and breaking of the filament.
Some manufacturers even apply a blue coating to virtually increase the brightness of halogen bulbs.
The bulb’s filament is commonly made of tungsten, which lights up once electricity flows through it and heats up to 2500 degrees Celsius.
Halogen bulbs are pretty cheap to manufacture and easy to get a replacement.
They can produce relatively bright and adequate illumination, and their small size means they take up less space in the vehicle.
Halogen headlights are the most affordable among the different headlights available today.
Due to the heat generated, halogen bulbs typically have a service life of about 2000 to 4000 hours and do not travel that far.
2. Xenon Headlights
One common factor differentiating this from other headlights is that these xenon headlights are commonly found in higher-end vehicles.
Xenon headlights are also called High-Intensity Discharge (HID) headlights. These lights travel far among the different headlight options, giving the driver the farthest visibility possible.
Due to this capability, many drivers install them daily as they are getting quite popular.
The xenon headlight differs from the halogen counterpart because it does not have a filament bulb.
Rather than filaments, the xenon headlight uses electrodes caged in a glass tube.
The tube is filled with a mixture of xenon and argon gas. Illumination comes from forming an arc as electricity passes through the pair of electrodes.
Because of these, I am unsurprised that some people refer to the xenon headlight as an arc headlight.
Vaporized metals like mercury and halides are mixed with xenon and argon gas. When electricity passes through the electrodes, these metals melt to form a plasma.
Due to this, high-intensity discharge headlights can also be called plasma headlights, albeit they are less popular. Wow, another name for one headlight.
Could there be more names? The only way to find out is to keep reading. You probably think the arc created gives the light, which will be short-lived.
The glow from the plasma produces the famous shade of brilliant white-blue light.
A reflector is incorporated to bounce the light to the right spot so that it is directed on the road.
Before you get excited about xenon headlights, please note that the light produced by the HID headlight is highly intense.
Strikingly bright lights are sure to irritate oncoming drivers. They can also distort the driver’s night vision capabilities, as the driver can struggle to see anything dimmer than the light.
However, Xenon headlights are pretty versatile, as their focus can be adjusted from a narrow beam to a broader beam that lights up the area ahead of your vehicle.
Yes, clarity of vision for the driver is top-notch, but you may be blind to everything else outside the boundaries of the light beam.
This can be a significant cause of accidents. The lifespan is sure to be longer than that of halogen headlights, as no filaments need burning.
The High-Intensity Discharge headlights can take a while to turn on, so if you are not the patient type, look elsewhere.
Even after coming on, they can take several seconds to warm up and boot to full brightness. Nevertheless, they remain unbeaten in terms of performance.
But be on the lookout, as the blinding effect is sure to increase the risk of accidents.
3. LED Headlights
These tiny modules are famous among the different types of headlights. They produce bright white lights and even last longer than their rivals.
As you may call them, LEDs, or Light-Emitting Diodes, are highly efficient, very compact headlights that can instantaneously turn on and off.
The instant control puts this headlight far ahead of the High-Intensity Discharge headlights, which take a while to come on.
The speed at which LED light bulbs produce light is in the nanosecond category. They can produce an array of different focuses within the blink of an eye, which is exceptionally fast.
LEDs are semiconductors. Unlike other types of headlights, using LEDs as headlights for cars offers unique potential.
They do not need filaments, electrodes, or vaporized metal plasma to produce light.
Instead, they rely on diodes right inside the headlights to deliver light through a conversion process known as electroluminescence.
This is a highly efficient process of converting electricity into light, and light is years ahead of halogen conversion technology.
Electroluminescence produces almost no heat, so LED headlights are sure to last way longer than their counterparts. Except you pick up a hammer and smash right through it. I would not do that if I were you.
Incorporating Light-emitting diodes into car headlights is still a pretty new technology, so only the rich who can purchase high-end vehicles can enjoy its glory.
Do not call it off just yet; the technology is quickly making its way to affordable cars, but low—and high-beam settings are still restricted to upper-end cars.
If you are wondering why LED technology is expensive, a tiny bit of a complicated system is required.
LEDs have high resistance, which causes the emitter chip base to get hot. If this heat is not dispersed, the diodes will melt off. To release this heat, a sink is required.
LED headlights are small and relatively compact, allowing car designers more freedom in incorporating them into their designs.
They immediately shoot up the status of any vehicle you find them on without lifting a finger, a literal one.
This headlight’s worthy advantage over the xenon headlights is that it does not blind or dazzle oncoming drivers.
The LED headlights have a wide area of vision beyond focusing on what is directly in front of the driver.
LED headlights can be implemented using any color spectrum, which is why they can be used as brake lights and turn signals.
However, you must reach deep into your pockets to get these, as they are not as cheap as halogen or xenon headlights.
4. LASER Headlights
If you thought LED headlights were probably the brightest headlight option, you are about to be shocked to learn that there is something even brighter than LEDs.
Well, you might wonder if they are that bright. Will they not affect the eyes? The answer is no, and they are as colorful as safe.
Laser headlights are probably the most innovative headlight technology among the different types of headlights in the automotive industry.
They require less power than LEDs but can produce a brighter light than LEDs by a thousand times.
Laser lights come to life through chemiluminescence, a process involving the production of light through a chemical reaction. Sounds fun! Now, let’s learn some chemistry.
Now, get a chamber and fill it with a yellow-colored phosphorus gas that is phosphorescent, which means it glows in the dark.
Next, shoot three blue-colored laser beams into the chamber filled with phosphorus gas.
This reaction lights up the phosphorus gas, and the chemical reaction continues as long as the laser beams are still directed at the gas. All this happens well within the confines of the chamber.
The final light you see from your laser headlights is not the light from the laser beams but the light produced by the reaction of the laser beams on phosphorus.
Mirrors and lenses create even stronger laser beams to enhance this light further. Please note that phosphorus does not store light. Now, away from the chemistry, let us return to the fun part.
Laser headlights can focus their beams as far as 2000 feet. That is incredible, super amazing. Laser lights are similar to natural daylight as they burn within the range of 6500 Kelvin, which is also the same as LED lights.
Laser lights are capable of giving instant flashes. Laser headlights ‘ versatility is a significant characteristic, and they can be molded into different designs and shapes. So, get creative with your setup; laser sure has your back.
However, reality kicks in once again. How much do these beautiful marvels of lighting technology cost? The whole process might set you back 10,000 dollars or more to upgrade your car headlights to laser headlights.
Laser lights give off more heat and require cooling than LED lights. Just a thought: how come Superman’s eyes never melt from his laser beams? Let us leave comics for comics.
Laser lights cannot replace LED lights in brake lights and turn signals despite their versatility.
5. Matrix Headlights
The first thing to note is that matrix headlights use LED lights. However, the implementation of the lighting system is what differentiates this headlight from LED headlights and other different types of headlights.
Some car manufacturers, like Land Rover, offer a combination of matrix-laser LED. Matrix headlights can have a cluster of up to 25 LEDs per beam unit.
In any case, you hear of pixel lighting; they are the same thing as matrix lights. The remarkable difference between matrix and LED lights is that the individual LEDs in the matrix lights are controlled independently.
Now, to the cool stuff. A camera is installed behind the rearview mirror to capture on-coming traffic and receive the visual signal to control the LEDs.
The sole purpose of this camera is to detect oncoming headlights or the tail lights of other vehicles in front of you.
When an oncoming headlight is seen, certain portions of the matrix lights or specific LEDs are turned off.
Turning off specific LEDs against on-coming vehicles prevents the dazzling of the other drivers.
Rather than being projected as a beam as obtainable in other headlights, the matrix headlights light up horizontally and vertically.
The most significant advantage of the matrix headlights is that the driver can still use the high beam to maintain visibility while reducing the dazzling on other on-coming drivers.
Types of Headlights Based on the Housing Design
1. Reflector Headlights
Talk of standard headlights in the 80s; you will find reflector headlights at the top. They are, of course, still located on vehicles today, with the popularity not waning at all.
Reflector headlights use mirrors installed in a bowl-like case to enclose the bulb, and the mirrors then reflect the light produced by the bulb onto the road.
The reflector headlight technology has come a long way. In older cars, the headlight casing was sealed, which meant that there could be no swapping of a burnt bulb with a good one.
The entire case had to be replaced. This was not precisely ergonomically wise, which is why you often hear of sealed beam headlights.
A lens was placed in front of the headlight to complement the mirrors further and prevent a scattered reflection from shaping the beam into the desired shape.
With newer technology, the mirrors are placed inside the housing shape and guide the beam.
This eliminated the need to seal the bulb in the housing, and it is so much easier to swap out damaged bulbs for good ones.
Parabolic reflectors direct light through glass or translucent plastic to amplify the light from the bulb.
The mirror consists of specially ground mini-lenses, which amplify the morning light to obtain adequate illumination of the road ahead for the driver.
The price for reflector headlights is relatively low and will not cause much vacuum in your finances.
They are smaller, occupying even less space in your vehicle. However, the beam from reflector headlights has less control, limiting the capacity of the bulbs installed. Of course, safety is paramount.
The light beam is not even, as you can find spots with high intensity and weak spots.
Furthermore, the low and high beams have no massive distinction between them.
2. Projector Headlights
Projectors, I am not referring to that little box equipment placed before a substantially white or black screen in cinemas to provide an enlarged display of whatever is playing for a better viewing experience. However, using a magnifying glass is the same as using projector headlights.
First found in high-end luxury cars in the 1990s, the technology has made its way down to affordable cars, even becoming more common than the reflector headlights. Headlights keep getting better and better in the headlight industry.
Projector headlights are not so distinct from reflector headlights and are similar in assembly. Both casings have mirrors installed in them.
The mirrors in projector headlights do a similar job as reflector headlights, acting as reflectors in both.
The only difference between projector headlights and reflector headlights is the lens used.
The projector headlight uses a magnifying lens before the bulb to boost the beam’s brightness, giving better illumination.
A barrier called a cutoff shield added to projector headlights ensures that the beam projection’s angle is correct.
Therefore, projector headlights have a sharp cutoff compared to other types of headlights. Projector headlights also have better brightness levels than old reflector headlights.
On the safety side, they do not pierce into the eyes of oncoming drivers because the beam projects downwards on the road.
So, pedestrians and other road users are spared from the blinding effect. Unlike reflector headlights, the beam of light produced by projector headlights is even in intensity.
High-Intensity Discharge bulbs can be installed in projector headlights, whereas the reflector headlights are restricted to halogen bulbs.
The light output from projector headlights is different from that of reflector headlights.
So, if you are a driver who has been using reflector headlights for a long time, you may need quite a bit of time to adjust to the beams from the projector headlights.
After exploring the different types of headlights, we might as well award a winner.
Laser headlights are undoubtedly the winner, but they have yet to be commercially available as the cost of mass-producing them is still very high.
So, the overall best headlight goes to the LEDs. LEDs provide the much-needed brightness but, better still, do not cause dazzling to other road users.
LEDs might be more expensive than the other headlights, but they are worth the investment.
